The present invention relates to instruments for the study of combustion gases and in particular to an improved sensor system for providing high-speed optical measurements of combustion gas temperature, water mole fraction and the like.
Knowledge about combustion, including combustion temperature and combustion gas composition, can be important in the study and control of internal combustion engines. For this purpose of measuring combustion gas temperature, it is generally known to use an optical pyrometer observing light emitted from the combustion gases and/or materials contacting combustion gases. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,370,486 describes a sensor that measures infrared energy emitted at several preselected wavelengths from hot gas to calculate gas temperature.
A more sophisticated system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,640,199, which analyzes the emission spectrum of the combustion gases to deduce temperature and relative concentration of some chemical species making up the combustion gas.